Be Where Your Feet Are: An Open-Handed October
By Erica Ogden | Set Apart Coaching
Something shifted today.
I am writing this on September 22nd, the first official day of fall. It is still 92 degrees here in Florida, which is honestly a little rude. But something is different. You can smell it. You can feel it in the way the air sits on your skin in the early morning. You can see it in the way the sun hangs in the sky, lower, softer, more golden than it was a month ago.
Something is shifting outside. And something is shifting inside too-at least for me. I wonder if it is for you too?
For the first time in a while, the word that best describes where my heart is sitting is anticipation. Not dread. Not survival mode. Not empty. Anticipation.
October Is My Love Language
I have had my house decorated since August. I already told you all in August….I am not sorry about it and I will not be explaining myself. 😄
But October is when it all actually comes to life. This is the month where we roast marshmallows over a fire in the backyard. Where we leave the windows open on cool mornings and linger a little longer over coffee. Where it gets darker a little earlier and somehow our dinner routine gets more efficient just so we can get outside as a family and feel the season for what it is.
This is when we do our family photos for the holidays. This is when my husband starts heading to hunting camp most weekends. This is the month my daughter turns 12-and if you have a preteen daughter, you already know what I am about to say..... those hormones..... the attitude..... the emotional weather system that is completely unpredictable and somehow always personal. I understand my parents more and more every single day as I parent my own girl.
And this October, I am checking something off of my bucket list. I am taking my kids to see the leaves change in the mountains for the first time. We are going somewhere I have always wanted to take them, a place I genuinely love even though theme parks are not my thing-like not even kind of. This one is different. This one has my whole heart. And I cannot wait to watch my kids experience it.
I am going into this month with open hands. And I want to talk about what that actually means......
Be Where Your Feet Are
There is a book I reference often in my coaching sessions called The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He is not a Christian. I want to be upfront about that because I know it matters a lot to some of you. But hear me when I say this book is packed with practical wisdom that has created real shifts in how I show up in my own life and how I help my clients show up in theirs. It is worth your time. And in the spirit of open hands, if you do choose to read it or Audible it, I would encourage you to embrace it with an open mind and heart.
One of the core ideas in the book is simple: the present moment is the only place life actually happens. Not in the replay of yesterday. Not in the anxiety of tomorrow. Right here. Right now. Where your feet are.
And I think October is one of the best months of the year to practice that.
Because October does not wait for you. The leaves do not hold their color while you scroll. The fire pit does not stay warm while you are somewhere else in your head. Your daughter does not turn 12 twice. The golden afternoon light that makes everything look like a painting…it moves on whether you noticed it or not.
The life you are rushing past is the one you prayed for. Maybe not the icky and painful parts -- but some part of it you did. I am sure of it.
I have spent a lot of this year in my head. Worrying. Bracing. Managing. Trying to hold things together that were never fully mine to hold. And what my September cocooning season showed me..... slowly, gently, and a lot of the time-painfully, is how much time I was wasting chasing the wrong things-dare I even call them idols?
This October I am choosing to be where my feet are. Not perfectly. Not every moment. But intentionally. In order to do that I have to choose carefully who and what I am willing to invest my time and energy into so that I can carry the bandwidth and capacity to be fully present in the things I am choosing to give my energy and time to and where God is calling me.
Consistent fine tuning of life-and I believe that is the key characteristic right there.
I don't like the refiner's fire but I appreciate what gets removed so He can shine through.
The refiner's fire comes from Malachi 3:3. A silversmith holds metal over an intense flame and he never walks away. He sits with it. Tends it. Watches it carefully the whole time. Like Jesus does when we are in our wilderness seasons-t's preparation. Because he knows the silver is pure when he can finally see his own reflection in it.
The fire doesn't destroy what's there. It reveals what was always there, just hidden by all the gunk. Everything that was never supposed to be -- the impurities, the noise, the things you picked up along the way that were never really you- rises to the surface and gets removed. Like a detox for your entire soul.
What's left is the purest version of what He always intended.
Now-hear me out-I'm not sitting over here saying I am pure and sin free. I am sitting here telling you that I am daily trying to be thrown into that fire so I can be who He has created me to be. I never enjoy it but appreciate so much what it's doing to me and for me.
The Last Quarter with Open Hands
October also marks the start of the last quarter of the year. And I want to talk about that for a second because I think we have two very different ways we can enter Q4.
We can enter it with a clenched fist. Panicked about everything we said we were going to do in January that still hasn't happened. White-knuckling our way toward a finish line that somehow keeps moving. Measuring our worth against a goal list we wrote when we were a completely different version of ourselves.
Or we can enter it with open hands.
Open hands does not mean giving up. It does not mean abandoning your goals or letting the year slip away without intention. It means holding what you want loosely enough that God can redirect you without you fighting Him every step of the way. Allowing your plans and life to change and adjust to what feels most supportive and aligned with you.
Cocooning season realigned me. It showed me what was not serving me anymore. The things I was chasing that I didn't even realize I was chasing -- that were never going to fill what I was trying to fill. The expectations I had absorbed from the outside world and others that had nothing to do with where God was actually calling me. It was uncomfortable. Some of it still is. But I am grateful for every bit of it because I can see more clearly now than I have in a long time.
So as you step into October and the last quarter of this year, I want to ask you something -- actually four things:
If God redirected everything you thought you wanted this year-what would you be willing to let go of first?
What is something that seems to be getting in the way of living the life you actually want?
What is one thing you have been chasing that has not once made you feel more like yourself?
If December 31st came tomorrow, what would your heart say it needed more of these last three months?
Sit with those. Journal them. Let them do their work.
The Aha Moment I Want to Leave You With
When you are fully present in the life that is right in front of you, you stop outsourcing your sense of purpose to everything that was never meant to carry it.
The likes. The comments. The comparison. The constant chase for external validation that never quite fills the gap no matter how much of it you get.
Presence is the antidote. Not perfectly curated presence. Not documented presence for an audience that really doesn't even care. Just you, actually in your life, actually feeling it, actually grateful for it. Living with intentional purpose day in and out and doing things to fulfill what God has called you to -- not what the world expects of you.
Go feel the season. Open the windows. Sit by the fire. Watch the leaves. Be where your feet are.
"This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it."
-- Psalm 118:24
Happy Fall Ya’ll!
Big Love, Hugs, and Coffee Mugs,
Erica Ogden
Certified Neuro Coach | Set Apart Coaching
If this resonated and you know you're ready to do the deeper work when the season shifts, I'd love to be in your corner. Learn more at ericaogden.com/
